Search

Before we begin, I’ll tell you right upfront that though I am going to try to keep the spoilers at a minimum I have a terrible track record so expect me to spoil this film for you.

This is a fun film and I enjoyed it a lot, and although it is set in the same universe as Godzilla, there is no comparison at all. Godzilla was pretty good but ultimately disappointing, this one is very good and not disappointing. Unless you want to see him climb the Empire State Building. But what do you expect? This film isn’t called Skull Island for nothing. He doesn’t go to New York.

In a nutshell, a bunch of soldiers and scientists land on Skull Island. The soldiers are there to help the scientists with a “geological survey,” which was just a lie to flush the monsters above ground. And it works. It works really well. It works too well. Out of nowhere Kong decimates them and from there on it is a trek for the survivors to the other side of the island while dodging monsters and beasts, but for one man it becomes an obsession to kill Kong. (And of course that man is Samuel L. Jackson. The subtitle of this film should be King Kong vs. Samuel L. Jackson.) Will he kill Kong? (No. See? I told you I’d spoil it.) Will the humans make it to the safety of the other end of the island? (Some of them yes, most of them no.) Does Brie Larson spend most of the film in a tank top, often soaking wet? (Mercifully yes.)

So here’s the good:

This film is faithful to the original from 1933, despite being a reboot and having no relation to the original. No, I am not drunk. Let me explain. This film is set during the 1970’s and details the first time outsiders set foot on the island. Take the original film- the island, the natives, the wall, Kong, etc., but now leave out Carl Denham and the rest. Imagine that they never set foot on the island. In Skull Island, it is easy to believe that this is what the original island would be like if no one else ever set foot on it. Sure, they updated it a bit, but this is clearly the same island. Also, the film opens with the sound of old airplanes and machine gun sounds over the credits, which leads into the first scene of a WWII air battle, but I also found it to be a homage to the climax of the original film.

It can actually be compared to Apocalypse Now. Yes, really, and I am not just talking about the posters. Skull Island generally follows the same basic plot as Apocalypse Now. A group of Vietnam-era soldiers in an untamed jungle doggedly moving upriver and through more and more danger to a climax with a mad colonel. True, Apocalypse Now doesn’t have a giant ape, but it does have Marlon Brando, so I call that a tie.

The first action sequence with Kong vs the helicopters is awesome. You will love it.

John C. Reilly is hands down the most fun character in the film. If you know him from Adult Swim’s Check It Out, his character is about 60% Dr. Steve Brule. If that means nothing to you, go to YouTube right now. Seriously, go. I’ll wait for you.

Kong is all over this film. This isn’t like Godzilla where we had a few murky shots and were constantly waiting for the monster to show up again.

The soundtrack is all 1970’s classic rock. Grace Slick! Black Sabbath! The Hollies!

And here’s the bad. But it isn’t too bad.

There were no dinosaurs. In every King Kong film, even the ones from Japan where he fights robots, he fights dinosaurs. And although I said above that the island is identical to the original, this is the one exception. No dinosaurs. Kong did fight a lot of reptilian skull crushers, but they looked more like those lame MUTOS Godzilla fought in his last American film than Dinosaurs. And while that makes sense since they are set in the same cinematic universe, it was a glaring omission. King Kong fights dinosaurs! (That will be rectified when King Kong vs. Godzilla comes out in a few years.)

This is the real problem I had with the film: It had no heart. You didn’t root for Kong. There was no “humanity” in him as there was in every other version of the giant ape. This Kong is just gruff. And it is understandable since he is an orphan who spends his life fighting other monsters. But it doesn’t make you root for him. He protected the humans in this film but never seemed to like them or have any connection to any other human. The film tried to make up for that by giving one of the human characters a tear-jerker ending and it worked, if the intent was to make everyone leave the film feeling good, but it did nothing to make us like Kong.

Like the original, the female lead ended up in the ape’s palm, but unlike the other versions this was a rescue and there was no connection between them. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Kong just dumped her back in the water.

This was a fun film and a good action film. This may not be the Kong that you remember or the Kong that you want, but it works. You get your money’s worth. And since we already know that King Kong vs. Godzilla is going to be made, my geeky fanboy take on that after seeing both monsters in action, is Kong will easily take out Godzilla.

This contains major spoilers for the series finale of Doctor Who, Death in Heaven. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading here.

I really enjoyed Death in Heaven. The highlight was Michelle Gomez as the Mistress. I’d love for her to somehow come back. I also think Peter Capaldi is a fantastic Doctor. In fact, though I mostly enjoyed this season, I think Capaldi has been better than the scripts he’s had to work with. I’m looking forward to next year. He should really come into his own, with a companion that will be written just for him. I liked his relationship with Clara, but it was clear she wasn’t the right companion for him.

But I had some major problems with the finale, and judging from the online reviews I’ve seen, I may be in the minority. Let’s start off with what stood out to me the most, then take the rest in no particular order.

The Bad Guys Won

Mistress and the Cybermen may not be around to savor their victory, but they achieved it nonetheless. Think about what they did: they successfully robbed every known grave on Earth. Every tomb in every cemetery is now empty. Think about the seismic shift in how people grieve/mourn/worship that must create. How will people react to their beloved ancestors not only being taken from their resting places, but then blown to atoms? There would have to be a seismic shift in most people’s world- or religion- view. What would the world’s religious leaders say? How would society react? And what becomes of all the now vacant cemeteries? Yes, everyone who dies post-invasion will continue to be buried, but in some respects, a huge chunk of the past is now moot.

The Cybermen Are No Longer Interesting

Honestly, the new series Doctor Who has never been able to make the Cybermen interesting. Even when they were introduced, they weren’t the real thing; they were parallel-universe versions. By the time Neil Gaiman got to them, all he did was manage to make them faster and sleeker. Their motivations? Backstory? Unexplored. And that’s a shame since they have such a rich backstory. Want Cybermen done right? Big Finish did it with Spare Parts. All this series finale did was finish them off. There was no indication that the Cybermen were working with Mistress, no indication that they had any motivation or agenda of their own. By all appearances, Missy was using them as she would any other weapon. The Cybermen were merely tools, same as a gun or a tank. And they are so far from their Mondas/Telos origins that they might as well have a new name. These are Cybermen in name only.

The Brigadier

Most reviews are calling this episode a touching goodbye to the Brig.

Nonsense. Seeing the Brigadier as a Cyberman was just painful. I’ve been watching Doctor Who since I was a child in the 70’s and I have seen every existing episode. To see a man who fought the Cybermen in his second appearance turned into one was just sad. Yes, it was great that he overcame his programming and saved his daughter, but when was the Brigaider ever a murderer? That laser bolt truly did come from out of the blue. You can argue that he saved the Doctor from becoming a murderer, you can debate that he was a soldier doing what soldiers do in war, you can argue that he was just doing what had to be done. But again, when did the Brigadier ever kill someone in cold blood? And you can’t blame it on his cyber-conversion. If he overcame his programming to save his daughter and not fly off into the sky with the others, then you can’t use it as an excuse here. This scene just sullied the Brigadier’s memory.

And then he became one.

President Who

Seriously? On the show, it has been established that the Doctor is too well known. He wiped his memory from people’s minds and erased himself from the entire Dalek network. Behind the scenes, the producers said that the Doctor was too big and had to go back to being more mysterious . So what do they do? They make him President of Earth. Yes, on the show the Doctor protested, but the bottom line is when they wrote this episode, they wrote him into being President of Earth.